


The Door Boss

by kyanve



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Kain is an idiot sometimes, egos are dangerous things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 18:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2437958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyanve/pseuds/kyanve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Golbez may have taken a few things for granted when he brought Kain along to the Tower of Zot.  With most of his better nature and common sense locked in a crate, Kain's not about to admit to what he doesn't know, either, moreso with Rosa around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Door Boss

Much later, Rosa would realize she should have figured out there was a problem within the first few minutes of arriving in the tower; Kain had lagged behind at the bottom of the tower due to some kind of exchange with one of the Fiends. She'd been led away before she could find out what it was. He had not caught up by the time Golbez had pushed her into the cell. There was a moment where he turned with a hand raised as if to speak, only to find empty air; the moment stayed still for a couple seconds before he turned, the door closing on its own behind him. 

He returned later with Kain in tow and a simple charge to keep watch, then left, with Kain in the room when the door closed a couple minutes later.

The attempts at serious questions had passed in the first hour after the door closed - "Why are you doing this", "What did they do to you", "What happened", "What is _wrong_ with you?".

Well, that's a partial lie - that last one had recurred a few times over a couple hours when Kain had been hovering too close and acting a little more blatantly off-kilter.

After three hours he'd taken to just leaning by the door watching. It was creepy for about an hour. 

 

After an hour and half without him moving, "creepy" began to wear off, and "pondering what kind of brain damage the Fiends had inflicted" had taken its place; Rosa finally sat on the far side of the cell, arms crossed, staring right back. 

 

That got mind-numbing after half an hour.

 

Somehow she managed to doze off; it was fitful and couldn't have lasted for more than an hour or two, and he hadn't budged.

 

At what was probably five hours, it had hit "ridiculous".

 

At six she finally got tired of it. "Don't you have anything better to be doing?" 

"No." It was a very firm answer, but he also had spent the last half hour watching a spot on the metal wall and didn't look away from it when he spoke; as strange as he'd been acting, the gesture was ridiculously familiar - she'd known him their entire lives, and had catalogued every one of his mannerisms for 'I am pretending I did not do something stupid'.

"...You locked yourself in here." 

The corner of his mouth twitched under the helm and he just barely straightened. Right on the money. The stare of 'You are not fooling anyone here and I did in fact just see you do something stupid now stop pretending before I hit you with something', however, did not seem to be having its usual effect; his stiff sulk increased under it to something someone unfamiliar with him would recognize as a sulk, but he didn't give up trying to pretend he had dignity, composure, and Was Not Sometimes A Moron. 

Not having something to hit him with probably wasn't helping that one; implied threats didn't work when the other party knew you couldn't make good on them. 

She folded her arms, letting the stare drop into a simple dim look. "...Would you know how to open it if it weren't locked?" 

"Yes." That was more curt, with a faint edge of less composed, and the sulk hadn't budged.

"...They haven't bothered to show you how to work most of this, have they." 

A complete stranger might have found the I-Am-Knight-Captain-Of-The-Dragoons-Of-Baron-And-I-Have-Control-Over-My-Life loom intimidating; he still wasn't looking at her despite having lapsed into it full-tilt. Knowing it was a petty composure sulk left her burying her face in her hands, chewing on her lip to avoid laughing. 

Looking up over her hands caught his shoulders hunched a little more in a further sulk. She already knew that if he did have a way to signal for help, he wouldn't; he was in full wounded pride mode, and silly things like logic were for people that weren't trying to salvage their egos. 

Not laughing at him was getting increasingly harder by the time the door finally opened; it didn't really take any ability to see a face under that armor to read barely concealed exasperated confusion in Golbez's posture as he walked in, noting where she was before focusing his attention on Kain.

The Dragoon just returned the look in challenge, posture straightened as if he hadn't just been sulking two minutes ago. "What?"

"If you're going to leave him unsupervised here, you need to at least teach him how to work the doors", she filled in, not sparing Kain's ego and not giving Golbez a reaction of fear. 

The shift of Golbez's armor that would've meant "take a deep breath and don't react" said plenty, and she was fairly sure there was a building headache written across whatever was under that helmet. He gave another glance to check where she was, turning to walk out, then stopped just outside the door when Kain hadn't moved, every inch pretending he'd meant to be there all along. "... _Come._ " came from the other side of the door with just enough tired irritation to add a clear extra message of 'done with your shit here'. 

Kain turned on one heel, walking out, still trying to carry himself as if the entire thing had been intentional; there was regret in minion choice written all over the set of Golbez's shoulders as the door closed.

She gave a count of thirty before she gave in and started laughing.


End file.
